I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for local inserting analog or digital material, such as an audio-video advertisement, into analog or digital broadcast signal. More specifically, the present invention relates to a novel method and system for inserting additional material into a multimedia or television (“TV”) channel signal being broadcast from a central source and received by a remote receiver adapted for rebroadcasting the television signal to a number of end viewer units. This application claims the benefit of priority to Swedish Application No. 94 03109-3, filed Sep. 16, 1994, and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/809,872, entitled “Apparatus and Method for Local Insertion of Material in Broadcasting,” filed Jul. 14, 1997, which is a 371 of PCT/SE95/01056, filed Sep. 18, 1995.
II. Description of the Related Art
Advertising in media broadcasting has traditionally been an exclusive field for large companies on national or multinational level. The reasons for this exclusivity are due to the high production cost for commercials and, perhaps above all, the fact that a very large number of consumers view a broadcast, thus motivating a high price per broadcast commercial. However, in the rapidly changing field of media broadcasting, these factors are changing. Advertising production costs decline from year-to-year. Moreover, as rebroadcast systems, such as various radio and cable television channels, increase, the viewer groups fragment and segment themselves. Consequently, it is increasingly important, and possible, to target the limited consumer groups that are integrated geographically or by viewer interests.
Thus there is a need for a cost-effective and efficient system and method for inserting locally broadcast commercials into conveniently arranged slots in wide-area multimedia broadcast channels. Such a system and method would allow large companies to insert information about local dealers into centrally produced commercials or small companies to afford locally broadcast commercials into a medium which in practice has been previously closed to local advertisers.
Several advertising insertion systems have evolved from analog insertion systems. These systems include U.S. Pat. No. 4,724,491 entitled “Inserting Television Advertising Spots Automatically,” issued to Lambert on Feb. 9, 1988, U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,068 entitled “Audio/video distribution system,” issued to Lindstrom on Oct. 22, 1991, and WO 93/10630 issued to Keene, all incorporated herein by reference. These patents disclose systems that switch on video tape recorders, to play commercials, in response to cue in signals broadcast within the main television signal. Analog and partly mechanical systems present problems concerning the reliability of an advertisement segment segueing into the main television signal.
Similarly, other patents address the transmission of television signals to be inserted into a main television signal, and the monitoring and logging of additional signals that have been inserted and broadcast. These patents include U.S. Pat. No. 5,099,319, “Video Information Delivery Method and Apparatus,” issued to Esch et al. on Oct. 23, 1999, and in the European patent application EP-A1-0 620 689, “Method and Apparatus for Automatic Insertion of a Television Signal from a Remote Source,” filed Apr. 15, 1994 by Lambert, both incorporated herein by reference.
A digital insertion system is disclosed in WO 93/21732, “Digital Audio/Video Insertion System,” filed Apr. 7, 1993 by Fasciano et al. Fasciano et al disclose a system comprising an apparatus for digitizing, compressing and storing audio/video source information, a playing apparatus for decompressing the source information and regenerating an analog signal, and a patching apparatus adapted to inset the regenerated analog signal into a broadcast channel. However, this system fails to solve the problem of reliably synchronizing and cueing additional signals into a broadcasting or other communication channel, and reliability in remote control of insertion apparatus. In particular, it is a problem to achieve a technical implementation that satisfies reliability requirements to a cost that is reasonable to a larger group of advertisement buyers.
Traditional cueing system are based on general-purpose interfaces (GPIs). These switch closure systems essentially have two states: “stop” and “go.” The “go” state cues and plays a predetermined later time. By their very nature, these cueing systems lack accuracy, flexibility, reliability and security.
These cueing systems are not frame accurate which limits their use. The “stop” and “go” nature of their cue results in a 5–8 second delay. This delay has to be adjusted at the remote or headend site for each television network, resulting in burdensome overhead.
Moreover, standard solutions are schedule dependent, and thus less flexible. In other words, they rely heavily on schedules that are stored at the remote system. Consequently, such a system lacks flexibility, accuracy, and security. Last minute changes in a broadcast schedule made at the central site would have to be communicated to the remote site. For example, suppose an important news event broke while a children's cartoon was being broadcast. The broadcaster would need to update the commercial media shown during a news story, because it may not be appropriate to show child-oriented commercials during a news report. These updates required by cue-tone systems require high overhead in terms of communication time and human intervention. What is needed is a solution that eliminates this high overhead.
Conventional systems are unreliable. To solve for this problem, conventional systems use “time windows,” which cancel commercial breaks if the commercial media is not played within a certain time window. The setting of these windows is often haphazard and requires additional human intervention to do the manual entry. The use of time windows is especially burdensome when a schedule changes quickly.
Another problem with standard cue-tone and general-purpose interface based systems are that they offer no inherent security for media channels or cable networks that deploy them. Video pirates can easily insert unauthorized materials during a commercial break. This is especially a problem for global satellite and cable channels that cannot, by their very nature, control and man remote sites in every country.
Thus there is a need for a cost-effective and efficient system and method for inserting locally broadcast commercials into conveniently arranged slots in wide-area broadcast media channels. Such a system and method would allow large companies to insert information about local dealers into centrally produced commercials or small companies to afford locally broadcast commercials into a medium which in practice has been previously closed to local advertisers, and reduce the high overhead required in conventional systems.